ST. LOUIS — A city board granted preliminary approval of incentives to a developer planning an ambitious $200 million mixed-use redevelopment in Downtown West that would build a 29-story apartment tower, office and retail on underused sites near the new Major League Soccer stadium.
St. Louis-based developer AHM Group is planning for about 475 to 500 apartments on the sites, along with 30,000 square feet of office space, 25,000 to 30,000 square feet of restaurants and retail and 750 to 800 parking spaces. The projects would be built on underutilized land near the future Centene Stadium, which is still under construction ahead of the anticipated kickoff for the St. Louis City SC MLS team next spring.
The developer has divided the 3.13-acre development site in Downtown West into five projects that, combined, would rehab four commercial buildings and construct three new buildings on currently vacant sites.
Brian Pratt, a principal of AHM, said the company will develop the sites itself, but could bring on other partners. All the projects are still in schematic and design phases.
The Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority voted Tuesday to blight the redevelopment area and recommended up to 10 years of 90% property tax abatement for the project. Each of the projects will individually return to the LCRA for incentives as they come online, but the developer needed some assurance from the city on incentives for financial partners, Pratt said. LCRA project manager Zachary Wilson told the board that incentives could go up to 90% for each project, and individual scores for projects could lead to less of an incentive for each one.
The firm believes the development will be successful because of its location near the soccer stadium, but also because of its proximity to the employment center of the new National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s western headquarters campus under construction north of Downtown West, Pratt said.
The AHM development is between the primary Interstate 64 exit being constructed to lead to the NGA and the campus, Pratt noted. The hope is to create an “18-hour neighborhood” between the stadium and NGA.
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